The present invention relates to postage meters and more particularly to a low cost postage applicator.
Postal meters are widely used by large and small businesses. The meters in use today are, almost universally, mechanical devices in which postage values are set, printed, and accounted for by means of mechanical assemblies such as linkages and registers. Such meters include a mechanical ascending register which provides a record of the amount of postage printed over the life of the meter and a mechanical descending register which provides a record of the amount of postage remaining for use in the meter. To prevent tampering with the critical functions of such mechanical meters, a number of different mechanical interlocks have been used. Such interlocks prevent a user from printing postage amounts without changing the contents of the ascending and descending registers. Other interlocks and seals make it nearly impossible for a user, without leaving telltale signs, to reset the descending register himself to "recharge" the postal meter.
Electronic postal meters have been developed. In such meters, a computer device such as a microprocessor may process weight signals, calculate postage amounts and cause an electronically driven printer to be set to the proper postage amount. All data, including critical accounting data, is stored in electrical format in memory units.
The advantages of electronic postage meters are known. Such meters, having fewer mechanical parts, should last longer and prove more reliable than completely mechanical meters. Furthermore, electronic postal meters are extremely versatile devices which may perform functions that cannot practically be performed in a purely mechanical meter. For example, an electronic postal meter may include logic circuitry for determining the destination zone of a package, given the zip code of the point of origin and the zip code of the point of destination. Moreover, such meters can generally be more readily changed to accommodate changes in the postal regulations or rates. Also, such meters are generally capable of performing at high speeds, a necessity for high volume mailing operations.
While the versatility and relative reliability of electronic postal meters make them very attractive for high volume mailing operations, the cost and complexity of known electronic postage meters has limited their usefulness to such mailing operations only.
The field of low cost postage applicators has been largely limited to purely mechanical devices including mechanical ascending and descending registers. Like all mechanical postage meters, the known low cost mechanical postage applicators are potentially subject to wear and reliability problems due to the many moving parts and linkages. Moreover, the manufacturing costs for such low cost mechanical postage applicators can be reduced only to a limited extent due to the fabrication and assembly costs for the mechanical components.